rent Northumbria after Edbert’s glorious reign, had weakened it so that it fell a prey to the gradual encroachments of its northern neighbours, the once royal city of Bamburgh was left in the hands of a noble Saxon family, and the court was removed to Corbridge, which remained the abode of the kings of Northumbria until Northumbria possessed royal rank no longer.  The tale of the two hundred years during which Corbridge was the capital city is a tale of red slaughter and ruin, murder and bitter feud, not against outside foes, but between one family and another, noble against king, king against relatives of other noble houses, amongst which might possibly be found the thegn to succeed him, or to murder him in order to bring about his own more speedy elevation to a precarious throne.

So much was this the case, that Charles the Great, at whose court the learned Northumbrian, Alcuin, was secretary, said that the Northumbrians were worse than the invading heathen Danes, who, by this time, had begun their ravages in the land.  Amongst the rulers of Northumbria in those days, the name of Alfwald the Just, who was called “the Friend of God,” shines out with enduring light across the stormy darkness of that terrible period; yet even his just and merciful rule and noble life could not save him from the hand of the assassin.  He was buried with much mourning and great pomp in the Abbey at Hexham; and during the recent excavations the fact of a Saxon interment was verified as having taken place beneath the beautiful tomb which tradition has always held to be that of King Alfwald the Just.  This fact also helped to demonstrate the extent of the original Abbey.

There was a monastery at Corbridge in the year 771, which is supposed to have been founded by St. Wilfrid.  Of the four churches which were erected in later times, only one survives—­the parish church of St. Andrew, which occupies the site of the early monastery.  In this ancient church may be seen part of the original Saxon work, and many stones of Roman workmanship are built up in the structure.

Like most other old churches in the north, it suffered severely at the hands of the Scots, and, as at Hexham Abbey, traces of fire may be seen on some of the stones.

King David of Scotland, on his invasion of England in 1138, which was to end at the “Battle of the Standard,” at Northallerton, encamped at Corbridge for a time, and terrible cruelties were committed in the district by his followers.  In the next century, King John turned the little town upside down in his efforts to find treasure which he was convinced must be concealed somewhere in the houses; but his search was fruitless.  In the days of the three Edwards, during the long wars with Scotland, Corbridge suffered terribly, being fired again and again; on one occasion, in 1296, the destruction included the burning of the school with some two hundred hapless boys within its walls.[4] [Footnote 4:  See Bates, p. 149.]